Rusty's Rags Gun Cleaning Cloth

Most of you have a gun cleaning cloth or two tucked into your gear bag or
perhaps sitting on the shelf with the other gun cleaning equipment. I keep
one on the top shelf of the gun safe. The one I have is kind of a tan
color and feels like a mix between denim and t-shirt material. It is
pretty much the last thing I use on my firearms after giving them a proper
cleaning and prior to their going into the safe.

Have you ever found a spot on one of your firearms where a small bit of rust
got started (when you weren't looking)? Now if you wiped it down with your
good ol' gun cleaning cloth, that wasn't suppose to happen....unless that cloth
didn't really get into all of the spots, "those nooks and crannies" as the folks
at Rusty's like to say. And so that is what sets Rusty's Rags apart from that combo
denim/t-shirt cleaning cloth I've been using....Rusty's really does get into the
nooks and crannies.

Why? Because Rusty's Rags doesn't use that denim/t-shirt
like material for their cloth but rather silicone impregnated sheepskin.
Let's take a look!

Rusty's Rags comes as a three piece cleaning cloth kit, so to speak. It
contains the previously mentioned piece of sheepskin with silicone already
applied to it, a flannel cloth to remove any excess silicone from the gun, and a
small bottle of silicone you can use to recharge the sheepskin. An
instruction card is also included.

When I first heard about the sheepskin, I envisioned that
typically long curly wool that one sees on the sheep runing around the pasture
(ok, so I confess I grew up as a farm kid). What I found when I opened the
package was a nicely trimmed sheepskin that obviously can work the silicone into
all of the nooks and crannies on a firearm. I gave it a try on my
Springfield XD45 compact and couldn't be more pleased with the results.

After unloading my Kahr PM9, which is my regular carry handgun,
I thoroughly wiped down the slide. Why a stainless steel slide? The
sights are blued and since a CCW handgun is exposed to a hostile environment,
I'm all for making certain no rust gets started on them. Likewise, that
checkering on the mag release button has already had one go around with a rust
issue and so I made certain the silicone was well worked into and around the mag
release. Again, the the sheepskin made it easy. When I was done, a
quick wipe down with the flannel cloth finished the job.

As I write this, I've only used it a couple of times but can not
imagine a reason why I won't continue with it on my handguns and other firearms.
Hats off to Rusty's Rags for
coming up with a better way to do a firearm wipe down. I recently found
some info on one of the firearms forums that stated that Brownells started stocking this
product. Enough said. Pick one (or two) up and start using
them. You won't be disappointed.

Update: 09/25/2010

I acquired another one of Rusty's Rags, this one for my long
guns (primarily intended for my FNH shotgun but the ARs might see some use from
it too). The sheepskin for the long guns is more than twice the size at 5"
x 5". It works just as well and makes it a little easier to wipe down the
larger surface area of the shotgun (and rifle). As with the handgun sized
rag, you won't be disappointed with this one either.